> [mb] Okay -- what happens when tests are submitted with a
> copyright? Or,
> do we not accept them unless we have free access to modify them? I am
> particularly concerned about a test that is submitted,
> accepted, and then
> someone later believes that there is a problem with the test
> -- modifies it,
> and resubmits it -- are we set up to track modifications?
>
> [dd] Very good point. resubmitted with a pointer to the old
> submission would
> be ebough, I think, as long as we, as Mary points out, track
> the submission
> steps. It's a service, if you will, we should provide.
>
> In any case, I think the process implies that the tests cannot contain
> copyright statements if they are to form part of the DOM TS.
> I suppose one
> way of going about would be to speak to the submitting party
> at that time.
From the DOM Conformance Test Process Document:
It is understood that no submitting party, individual or company, can claim ownership of submitted tests. All copyright notes and similar text must be removed from the code prior to submitting the
test (or tests) to the DOM TS. It is also understood that no submitter can try to withdraw submitted tests, but must ask the TS moderator that the test be withdrawn. Reasons for this should be given,
for reasons of future reference. In this case, the moderator should send a notification to the DOM TS mailing list in which is stated that the contributor for a particular test wishes to withdraw the
submitted test. Only after that and after approval from the DOM WG can the test be withdrawn from the DOM TS.
The W3C Document Notice and License will apply for the DOM Test suites.
----------
This would require those notices to get removed before submission. However,
I can see some issues with those statements.
First, wouldn't the Software Notice be more appropriate? With the Document
Notice, you couldn't make deriviative works, even if your intent
was to submit the test back to the work group. Also, generating testing
code for a specific language might be problematic under the document
license since that could be considered a deriviative work.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/IPR-FAQ-20000620.html#holds
would indicate that the original author could maintain the
copyright as long as the W3C license is asserted.
I know there was a discussion xml-dev on how the lack of an explicit
copyright may not negate an implicit copyright, so just
removing an existing copyright notice may not negate the ownership
claims of the submitter. Hadn't heard that argument before,
but I'm not an intellectual property lawyer.
In some ways, test submission is similar to patch submission to
the CVS project and we could require submitters to fill in the
patches form before integrating their tests into the CVS.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/IPR-FAQ-20000620.html#contribute
I would think that almost all tests will need to be modified
by the DOM TS group. Any changes that the original submitter
wants to make to a test could be signified by adding a comment
to the original test submission.